The World As It Was Meant To Be, part 1

I grew up in the country. My summer days were spent running around barefoot in the woods and hanging out with the only other kid in the neighborhood, and he is 6 years younger than I am. I remember the time I told him there was no Santa. He was 7, I think. His name is Jeff Coletrane.

Jeff’s dad is the consummate country boy. My brothers and I spent our summers working with John Wayne Coletrane mowing lawns, throwing hay, and pretty much anything else that would bring in a few extra bucks.

Every now and then the Coletranes would bring home an animal. Once it was a raccoon they kept in the little playhouse behind their home. It was fenced in, and we always hoped it would become tame and turn into our best friend, following us on our many adventures in the woods. Didn’t happen.

One day John Coletrane brought home a baby goat that was Jeff’s to care for. When it was big enough, they tied it to a tree right outside the raccoon cage. Jeff named her Jellybeans.

I have a confession to make. I hated that goat. I am not proud of this, but when no one was looking, if I was walking by, I would hit it in the face, or I would kick it, or I would wrap it’s rope one more time around the tree to give it a bit less slack. I’ve been carrying this guilt around for 20 years, and it feels good to get this off my chest.

I don’t really know why I would do something like that. But I have some theories:

Maybe I was jealous- I always wanted animals like the Coletranes, but my family just didn’t keep animals except for dogs.

Maybe I was weak- I was never the strongest or most athletic or coolest kid, and I wanted to feel like I was powerful.

Maybe I was cruel- Something in me felt good when I caused harm to a weaker animal.

Maybe it was all three.

What I do know is that these actions on my part are symptoms of a greater problem. We all know this intuitively, all we have to do is look around at the news, and we realize deep down that the world is not as it was meant to be.

Let me give you a picture of the world as God created it:

Genesis 1 gives us a picture of a world in complete balance. Everything God created was good and in perfect order. That’s what the word “good” means here. It’s not good in a moral sense. In Hebrew the word is tov. It means complete, in perfect order, and well-done. There was no extinction, all the creatures were well taken care of, and the climate was perfectly balanced. It’s hard for us to imagine, right?

Well that’s not the most amazing thing. Because after all the things God created and called good, he still hadn’t gotten to the best part. He was building up to His creation nonpareil, His crowning achievement, His magnum opus.

The Bible tells us that God spoke the world into existence, God said, “Let there be light.”, and BAM!!, there was light. It was the same with each stage of creation, land, sky, sun and moon, fish and birds, plants and animals. And after each stage, God looked over His work for the day, and said, “Yes, this is good.” But then, after the animals that live on the land, God stops, takes His time, and gets intimately involved in the formation of the crown of creation, the human. He stoops down, digs into the dirt, and with His own hands forms the shape of a human like we would do with play-doh. And then, He puts His face close to the human’s, and breathes the first breath into his lungs. The word for breath is also the word for spirit, so the first human had the pure breath of God in His lungs, and the man’s spirit was given directly by God Himself.

The man’s name was Adam, the Hebrew word for dirt. Now this dirt was perfectly morally pure. He was not guilty of anything, was completely selfless, and had the opportunity to live forever. His job was to be God’s representative on earth, to rule creation as God’s right hand. And the human knew exactly what God was like because he was able to walk and talk with God as if he were walking and talking to you or me face to face.

There was no war. There was no jealousy. There were no power-hungry dictators. There were no cruel fathers beating their children or wives. There was no destruction of the environment. The man had plenty to eat, and when God created the woman, they were the perfect complement to each other.

So pretty much imagine the best possible world without technology, and it was probably pretty close.

But look around at the world today. There is war. There is abuse. There is jealousy. The world is not as it was meant to be. And there is a reason why.